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JURY SERVICE
A good start;
I couldn't work out
The door code
To the Jury Room
Jigsaws, old videos,
Joysticks for computer games:
We're in for a long wait.
It's all gloriously amateur.
The jury are all outsiders, who would never
Normally be in the same building together
Let alone a jury box.
The witnesses and defendant
Don't want to be here and
Are only too keen to get away.
The legal fraternity focus
On Barbados or the Dow Jones.
Only the Ushers are here
For the duration -
And the canteen staff,
Not that we are allowed to mix
With the hoi-poloi down stairs.
The anonymity is strange;
We are important
Because
Nobody knows who we are.
As a writer -
How lovely to note that down -
It feels odd that I can't take
Anything I write out of the court
So any pearls are left
Beneath the bench.
Things I can say
The jury benches in Court 3 are like miserichords;
Once in place we cannot move and perch facing towards
The wigs, defendant, video links, stuck here to listen to
The slow unfolding of a case where we must search what's true
Amidst the jargon and the hints of things that might have been
But now in court, listed infull, seem bloated and obscene.
I hope that these miserichords and our forced meditations
Lead to a truth beyond the facts and point all to salvation.
As the case goes on
All the maggots
Crawl out of the woodwork.
The endless patience of the lawyers
Trying to get objective statements
From the intellectually challenged
Never ceases to amaze.
Paint dries more quickly
Than counsel cross-examining
A vapid witness.
Dr Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 2.8.23
